NRSC talks tough ahead of GOP primaries

Burned by intraparty warfare the past two election cycles, the Senate Republican campaign committee may take a heavier hand in contested primaries in 2014 to push its preferred candidates across the finish line, a top official said Tuesday.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s move would mark a dramatic shift from 2012, when the committee sat out contested GOP primaries to avoid meddling in the party’s internal affairs. But after witnessing several candidates emerge in 2010 and 2012 in states that could have handed the GOP a Senate majority, top officials now are prepared to change course.

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“Would we spend money in a primary? Yes, we would if that’s the right move at the time,” Rob Collins, executive director of the NRSC, told reporters Tuesday. “There are no rules. I treat every state differently. The path to getting a general election candidate who can win is the only thing we care about. So where we agree with everybody: Awesome, let’s work together. Where we don’t: We do what we think gets us to a majority.”

The comments are the latest sign that the party establishment is prepared to take a tougher line in the 2014 midterms against conservative outside groups that have dumped big bucks into GOP Senate primaries and complicated the party’s path to the majority. Senate Republicans are facing several potentially messy primary fights, including in red states like Georgia, blue states like Iowa and states where there’s a GOP incumbent, like Kentucky.

The NRSC has long defended incumbents in their primary fights. But since the rise of the tea party in 2010, the campaign committee has struggled with how to handle primaries in states where there isn’t a GOP incumbent.

In 2010, the NRSC battled with the Senate Conservatives Fund — an outside group founded by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint — in states including Colorado, Florida and Delaware during the primaries. Despite winning seven seats that cycle, Republicans believe the nasty primaries produced weak general election candidates in states including Colorado, Delaware and Nevada, which left the GOP short of a majority.

In 2012, the NRSC sat out the primaries in the hopes of uniting the party behind the general election nominee. But that strategy floundered, too, as the GOP lost several winnable races last year, including in Montana, North Dakota, Missouri and Indiana, even losing two seats despite a map that heavily favored the party.

The Senate Conservatives Fund and other like-minded groups argue that the GOP must nominate unyielding conservatives who would be less inclined to cut deals with Democrats. And in this election cycle, the group has taken its level of confrontation with the Senate GOP to a whole new level. It’s attempting to take down incumbent Republican senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

With six seats separating Republicans from the majority in next year’s midterms, Collins signaled 2014 may be different. Indeed, the NRSC already has severed ties with a GOP ad firm, Jamestown Associates, over its work with the Senate Conservatives Fund. And it’s signaling it may drop big bucks into a primary even if it prompts a revolt from tea party activists.

It remains to be seen whether the strategy works. Candidates in GOP primaries who are wooing tea party types rarely want to be seen as the anointed candidate from Washington. If the NRSC drops cash into primaries, it could drain its resources before expensive general election contests against well-funded Democrats.

But the early investment could certainly pay off: Sharp attacks could begin to imperil the viability of GOP primary candidates the NRSC deems unelectable in a general election.

In the Louisiana race to unseat Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, the NRSC is already lining up behind Rep. Bill Cassidy, who is facing a challenge from the right from Rob Maness, the recipient of an endorsement from the Senate Conservatives Fund. Collins said he’s not “too worried” about Cassidy’s chances but left the door open to engaging there.

Similarly, in a contested GOP primary to fill the seat of the retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Collins wouldn’t say whether the NRSC would dump money into the Georgia race to affect its outcome, saying “all options” were on the table to elect the conservative “who can win.”

“That’s the great thing about the job I’m in: I can do whatever I want, and I’m going to do whatever I need to do to win,” Collins said. “I have 45 board members, and I have to take that into account. But this is politics, and we ultimately are in the wins business. And that’s what we’re focused on.”